The Planet Out of Time
by Woof
Summary: An accidental collision in the Time Vortex leaves the Doctor and his companion stuck on a strange rock, with even stranger company. 9th Doctor, Rose, and... the 8th Doctor? oh dear...
1. Chapter 1

Rose Tyler jolted bolt upright in her bed and stared wildly while her eyes adjusted to the darkness, caught halfway between sleep and wakefulness and uncertain whether she had actually just heard that very loud 'BANG' or if it had merely been the product of an escaping dream. Some seconds later the room shuddered around her, and she decided that it had most definitely not been the latter.

The timepiece on the bedside table proclaimed that it was just after two o'clock in the morning, ship's time. "Brilliant," she muttered, throwing back the covers, throwing on a t-shirt and pair of jeans, and half-hopping out the door as she pulled on her shoes. She paused in the corridor, frowning, fancying she heard a certain… off tone in the soft, persistent rumble of the TARDIS engines; then the ship lurched startlingly and threw her against the wall.

Well, that answers that. Something not-right, check.

Rose jounced down the hallway, dragging one hand along the wall for balance. She burst into the control room and grabbed hold of the railing, nearly pitching head-first over it as the floor tilted sickeningly beneath her feet. "Doctor! What's going on?"

"Bit busy!" sang the terse reply from the opposite side of the hexagonal console, punctuated by a loud snapping noise and a shower of sparks.

Rose cast her eyes anxiously upward at the time rotor, which was making a most unhealthy grinding noise, and twisted her hands on the rail. "Is there anything I can do?" she called out, feeling rather useless.

The Doctor skidded round the left side of the console, grabbing hold of one of the panels for balance as the TARDIS juddered and slewed sideways. "Yeah – hold down that lever and _don't let go!_" he admonished, jabbing his sonic screwdriver in one direction as he moved in the other, wresting open the temporal yaw panel and loosing a string of colorfully indecipherable profanities as he was greeted by another explosion of sparks. Undaunted, his expression set in a fierce grin, he reached inside and yanked out a tangle of wires.

"What happened?" Rose tried again as she threw herself at the indicated lever, gripping it with both hands and dragging it down. It didn't want to cooperate.

"Collision. Hit something," the Doctor replied, his voice level but his eyes intent as he busily sorted through the wires. "Aha, gotcha." He thumbed a setting on the sonic screwdriver and neatly severed one of the yellow ones. The TARDIS groaned in protest and the grinding of the time rotor rose to a high-pitched shriek. "All right, maybe not," he amended, fingers flying to splice the injured conduit back together.

"But how? Thought we were in the temporal vortex… thingy? Have we popped out somewhere?"

"Nope!"

"But there's nothing else _in_ the vortex to run into, is there?"

"Nope!"

"But we've hit something anyway?"

"Yup!"

Rose muttered under her breath, "Just so we're clear on that, then." She shifted her weight and leaned harder on the lever, which was fighting determinedly to get out of the 'down' position.

"Here we are!" the Doctor proclaimed triumphantly, cutting the blue wire and cross-splicing it with a red one. The growling of the engines abruptly died away with a vaguely pathetic whimper, and the time rotor wheezed to a halt. The sudden silence was deafening. "You can let go that lever now," he said briskly, shoving the mess of wiring back into the console and swinging the panel shut.

She let go, cautiously. The lever didn't move. "What'd you do?"

"Emergency landing. Got to assess the damage. Whatever hit us, it rattled the old girl good." He was circling the console now, pouncing on switches like a prowling cat, and looking up expectantly at monitors that remained distressingly blank.

"Where are we?" Rose ventured.

"Don't know!" he replied brightly. "External sensors are down…" he gave the side of the main monitor a good, solid whack with the flat of his hand. No response. "Yup. Definitely down. Well, let's have a look then, shall we?"

"How d'you know there's not an army of angry aliens with ray guns out there? Or – or nothing but poisonous gas?"

"Don't," he shrugged. "How d'you know we're not in the middle of the shopping center on Jupiter Six?" He broke out that insufferable ear-to-ear grin and held out his hand expectantly.

She sighed, and took it. Didn't she always?

He swung the door open and poked his head outside, sniffing cautiously. "No poisonous gas," he determined. "Hallo! Anyone out there?" Pause. "…No angry aliens either, it seems." He sounded almost disappointed. They stepped outside.

"No shopping mall either," Rose observed, squinting through the fog. In point of fact, there was not much of anything. The TARDIS had materialized on the plateau of a desolate hillside, occupied by a few lumps of boulders and purplish trees. Stretching away into the distance was more of the same: craggy hills poking through swirls of fog, which themselves occasionally parted to reveal deep cracks of earth. The sky was impenetrably overcast, casting the land in a gloomy hue. "Bit… gray, isn't it?" Rose sniffed, suddenly glad for the comforting weight of the Doctor's hand in hers as a shiver raised the hairs on the back of her neck. "D'you recognize it, then?"

"No," he replied, his head tilted at an odd angle, lips pursed curiously as he stared off into the mist.

She elbowed him playfully. "Some guide to the universe you turned out to be."

He broke out of his reverie and glanced down at her with a smirk. "Rose, it's a very big universe. I'm sure there're a _few_ planets I haven't been to yet."

She stifled a yawn, recalling that it was, after all, the middle of the night by her internal clock. "Well, can't say I blame you for giving this one a miss," she declared, twisting to have a look at the TARDIS instead. "Oh… wow."

"Hm?" The Doctor let go her hand so he could turn properly, and his overlarge features immediately creased in dismay. He pressed one hand against the worn blue wall and traced, with the other, the outline of the significant indentation in said wall. "Poor old girl; what've we done to you?"

"I thought," Rose ventured, softly, "that the TARDIS was supposed to be pretty much indestructible? All the armies of Genghis Khan and such?"

"Supposed to be," the Doctor agreed, craning his neck back to examine the crumpled molding above. "Just like there's not supposed to be anything to run into in the Time Vortex. Nothing physical, anyway."

"Can you fix it?"

"What, the exterior hull? Just haul her down to Ted's Body Shop and bang her back into shape?" A wry smile curved grimly about his thin lips. "No. No, I can't fix this."

Rose wished she possessed his apparent calm. "How're we going to get off this rock, then?"

He blinked; looked at her abruptly, as if startled by the question. "The TARDIS can heal herself, Rose. Well, to an extent, anyway." He drew the sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket and brandished it cheerfully. "I'll have to do a bit of tinkering with the main console, though. All in a day's work." He looked around thoughtfully. "First though… I want to have a look 'round. See if I can get my bearings, so I can calibrate the guidance system. Something funny about this place…."

"Last time you said that," Rose felt herself grinning, "we ended up running for our lives from a lot of very angry geckos."

"Gethrix," he corrected automatically, "and how was I supposed to know that was their queen?" He poked the screwdriver admonishingly at her. "Wait here, don't wander off, I'll be back in a tick."

"And the last time you said _that_—"

"All in a day's work, Rose," he called back over her, cheerfully, and within ten steps had disappeared into the fog on the upward slope.

Rose let out an exasperated sigh, then chuckled quietly to herself. "He tells _me_ not to wander off," she mused, tracing her fingertips lightly over the wounded side of the TARDIS. "Don't worry, girl, he'll have you up and running again in no time." A light breeze sent another chill up her spine, and she folded her arms, leaning back against the unassuming blue box for comfort. Of course she could have just gone back inside; retreated to the warmth of her abandoned bed; but it didn't seem quite right to enjoy a kip whilst leaving the Doctor to tramp about all by himself.

That, she decided, was what bothered her most about this place. There was this overwhelming sense of… emptiness. Of being so alone that not only was there no one else breathing the air of this godforsaken rock, but that no one ever had. She shivered and rubbed her arms, willing the Doctor to hurry it up, already.

A faint rattle of gravel drew her attention down the hill. "Doctor?" she called tentatively. Her alien friend seemed to possess a remarkable sense of direction, but in this fog, she reasoned, anyone could get turned around. "Doctor, I'm up here. You've overshot us."

There was no response, save the skittering sound of some more small stones clattering down the slope. "Hello?" she tried again, taking a few steps forward – and keeping well within sight of the TARDIS, of course; she wasn't stupid – and peering into the fog. Nothing, of course; not even the looming shape of a great angry monster, much less the lean profile of her Doctor, with his big stupid grin and big stupid ears. The overwhelming loneliness of the place pressed in on her again, the fog like a suffocating blanket. "Oi!" she shouted suddenly, "If anyone's out there, you'd better just come out and say so; I'm not playing games, you know!"

Almost immediately she felt better. "Well, that sorted you out, didn't it?" she addressed the phantom mist. She nodded decisively and was about to return to the TARDIS when she caught a sparkle of something on the ground, just a bit down the slope. "Hello," she muttered, and went to pick it up, tossing a quick glance over her shoulder to ensure she didn't lose the TARDIS in the fog. Wouldn't do much good, finding the indigenous artifact that'd be the key to figuring out what planet they were on, if she went and got lost herself, would it?

It was with a sense of more annoyance than fright, as the loose gravel shifted under her feet, that she lost her balance and tumbled away down the hill, into an onrushing mass of blackness, and then nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

Rose blinked groggily awake some time later; minutes or hours, she couldn't immediately tell. Minutes, she decided, sitting up and rubbing her head, and noting that a scratch on the back of her hand was still welling blood, not having had time yet to scab over. She frowned and surveyed her surroundings. A hole, she concluded in short order. Bloody brilliant. Don't wander off, he'd said, and she'd managed to tumble who knew how far and get stuck in a _hole_.

It was, at least, a dry hole. She craned her neck to gauge its depth. Pushed herself to her feet and reached up on tiptoes for the edge; then sighed and slumped back against the dirt wall. Nine feet if it was an inch. Wonder she hadn't broken anything. She rubbed her lower back and grimaced. She'd be bruised and sore tomorrow, in any case. Felt like every part of her body had been put through a grinder.

Well, nothing to be done for it now but to swallow her pride and admit she needed help. "Doctor!" she shouted, then sighed. He was going to laugh at her. Affectionately, of course; but he was going to laugh and make one of his avowals of confusion as to why humans couldn't follow simple instructions. Stupid little apes, wandering off and getting lost because they'd seen something _shiny_. She wanted to smack herself in the forehead, but it hurt enough already. "Doctor!" she yelled again.

And again.

When some twenty minutes had gone by without a response, she began to worry. What if he couldn't find her? What if he'd gotten to tinkering with the TARDIS and not even noticed she was gone? No, that was ridiculous. Of course he'd notice. What if – and here a cold fist gripped the pit of her stomach – what if he'd been hurt somehow? "Doctorrrr…" her voice trailed off in a frustrated whimper as she thudded her fists against the wall of her makeshift prison. She jumped; clawed; tried to find a root or a crevice or any kind of handhold but the dirt just crumbled beneath her fingers. Maybe, she reflected darkly, she could tunnel out. With her fingernails. She sighed and sat down at the bottom of the pit, resting her chin on crossed arms over her knees. She thought wistfully of her phone, which was usefully sitting on her bedside table in the TARDIS. "Idiot," she muttered.

"…lo?"

Rose snapped her head up, startled. Was that a voice? "Doctor! I'm down here!" she cried with renewed vigor, scrambling to her feet.

"Yes, I can hear you," the voice called back, faint through the heavy air. "Stay put, I'll come to you!"

"Where else am I going to go?" Rose wondered caustically under her breath, watching the rim of the hole. A sudden thought occurred to her. "Careful, there's a big—"

A head popped into view over the edge of the pit. It was not the Doctor. No big stupid grin, no big stupid ears. Just a pair of absently friendly eyes and a mop of longish wavy brown hair.

"…hole," Rose concluded belatedly, recovering from her surprise. Evidently the planet wasn't as empty as all that, then. And he wasn't even a big slimy monster. He looked human.

"Hello," the man greeted amicably, as if they'd just run into each other in the park and she wasn't, in fact, trapped at the bottom of a great bloody hole.

"Little help?" she replied, with an embarrassed grin.

He returned it brightly. "Right. Sit tight… not that I'm sure where you'd run off to. But I thought I saw some vines back there. Have you out in two shakes." He disappeared abruptly from view.

Rose shook her head and rubbed her eyes. Like moths to a flame, she seemed to attract the odd ones. A few minutes later, a ragged-looking vine of dubious durability arced over the lip of the pit and swung down, nearly hitting her in the face. "Little warning next time?" she called up as she caught hold of the makeshift rope. It oozed some manner of nasty sticky sap that instantly bonded with her skin. She sighed. Better sticky than trapped at the bottom of a hole, she supposed.

The face popped back into view a moment later. "Sorry," he said, sounding genuinely contrite. "Best I could do in a pinch."

"It'll do fine," she assured him. "Safe to climb up, then?"

"I tied the other end round one of those boulders. As long as the vine doesn't snap…."

"Great moral support, you are," Rose observed through a determined grin, hauling herself up the rope. Chiltern Street Junior School Under Sevens Gymnastics Team bronze medallist, that was her. Her rescuer crouched by the side of the hole to give her a helping hand up once she was in reach. Gratefully, she extricated her right hand from the sticky vine and slapped it into his equally sap-stained hand. With surprising strength he heaved backwards and pulled her the remainder of the way out of the pit, whereupon they both promptly lost their balance and landed in a tangle of limbs and sticky plant fibers.

His eyes, Rose noticed, were green. No, aquamarine. No, green. She noticed this because hers were now some three inches from them. He smiled winningly. Quite expressive lips, she observed, set in a finely-boned face of the sort the Doctor would doubtless term 'pretty'. With this realization she startled back to her senses and awkwardly rolled off of him with a mumbled, "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," he replied, sitting up and batting quite futilely at the sleeves of a dark green frock coat which were now irrevocably covered in sap. He gave up the effort with a dismissive shrug and pushed to his feet, dusting his hands together and looking about briskly like a man with a purpose. Rose stared at him. Odd enough there should be someone else on this empty rock; odder still that he should be human (good-looking too, she had to admit in spite of her better instincts); and even odder yet that he should be dressed in full Edwardian gentleman's garb (he was wearing a _cravat_ for god's sake – the stickpin was badly off-center). But on top of all of that, she could almost swear she knew him from somewhere.

"Have we met?" she blurted.

He gave her a bemused look, all wide-eyed innocence. "I don't think so." He extended a hand to help her up from her inglorious seat on the ground, and grinned, "Why, do you come here often?"

"Oh… yeah, loads," she found herself smiling back. "Thinking of building a summer home here, actually."

"Really? It's my first time." His gaze wandered past her face and roved in a distracted manner over the featureless hills, as if he were trying to find the reason one would want to keep a summer home in such a place.

"I was joking," she qualified slowly.

His eyes snapped instantly, unnervingly, back to hers. "Oh yes, I know," he said in a matter-of-fact manner. He clapped his hands together, like an eager child on some new fun adventure. "Well then, where do we go from here?"

Rose was not particularly accustomed to leading expeditions on strange planets. That was the Doctor's job: to dash headlong into whatever danger beckoned, while she held onto his hand did her best to keep up. "Well, I should check on my… companion, really. He went off exploring a while ago. Should've been back by now."

"Yes, companions are good at that sort of thing," the man agreed amiably. "Where'd you leave him?"

Rose frowned, rubbing the back of her neck as she turned slowly around, squinting. "I'm not sure, that's the problem. I fell down some sort of hill…"

"Like that hill?" He pointed, mildly, at the rising slope to the east: the only one of the otherwise indistinguishable hills that bore the obvious recent skid marks of a tumbling body.

Rose felt her cheeks warm in embarrassment. "Ah… yup. That would be it."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Her odd rescuer bounced ahead, starting to trek cheerfully up the hill. Rose could almost swear he was whistling. Then she realized he was rapidly fading into the thick mist, and hurried after him.

"Hey, wait up!" He paused, glanced back, and upon realizing how quickly he'd left her behind, courteously offered a hand up over a particularly steep bit. She huffed as she clambered, noting with mild irritation that he didn't even seem to be out of breath. "So," she panted between breaths, "Bit of an odd place to just happen onto someone, isn't it? How'd you end up here?"

"Believe it or not," he smiled, his eyes on the ground ahead, picking out the best path, "I—" he broke off suddenly, standing stock straight and tilting his head as though listening for something.

"What?" Rose had her eyes on the ground and nearly ran into his back.

He held up one hand in a shushing motion; which quickly turned into a grabbing motion as she wobbled and almost lost her balance at the sudden stop. "D'you hear that?"

She listened. "No?"

"Shh… there it is again. This way!" he proclaimed, striking upward at another angle. "Hello," he called, cheerily, "who's there? We come in peace!" Straining her ears, Rose thought she could discern a faint response. Her escort glanced back. "Rose? Is that your name?"

Relief flooded her. "Yeah – that must be my friend. So he's looking for me after all."

"Well, that's what friends are for. Let's see if we can find him first," he grinned mischievously, hopping over a dead purple log and glancing solicitously back to see if she needed another hand.

This was fortunate, as it turned out, because just as he turned, the fog parted a short distance up the hill to permit the passage of a familiar tall figure in a familiar battered black leather jacket. Rose's knees shook as she cried out in relief, exhaustion suddenly overcoming adrenaline. The man in the green frock coat saw this and leapt down quickly to catch and steady her about the waist. The Doctor was upon them seconds later, his hands infinitely gentle as he helped ease her down to sit on the log; but his eyes barely passed over her, settling instead in a displeased glare at her new friend.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded in a clipped tone.

No 'Hello Rose, good to see you, glad you're alive and in one piece,' hell, not even a, 'I thought I told you not to wander off.' Rose snorted indignantly. Honestly, he could be such a _child_ about her happening to run into good-looking blokes.

Said bloke sat down on the log next to her, leaving the Doctor to loom over them both. "Well I didn't come here on purpose. My TARDIS broke down, actually," he explained calmly.

Rose startled and snapped her head round to stare at him. "You've a TARDIS too?" she blurted. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask," he replied simply, his eyebrows climbing at the notion that this was information he should have volunteered.

Rose was beginning to work it out, now. "Wait – you're a Time Lord too?" She ignored his puzzled mouthing of the word 'too' and chattered on. "Of course, that's why you weren't tired climbing up that stupid hill. You've got two hearts, right?"

The Doctor cleared his throat loudly. "Scuse me, but I'm here too you know—"

"But he's a _Time Lord_, Doctor; I thought you said all the Time Lords were—"

"_Hush, Rose!"_

It was the sharpest tone the Doctor had ever taken with her, and her voice instantly shriveled into a squeak, her mouth still working as she blinked at him in shock.

The man seated next to her, meanwhile, repeated the word 'Doctor' in a mystified whisper, his eyes darting between them. He rose abruptly to his feet with a startled, "Oh!" And then gave the Doctor a very hard look, culminating in a small gasp of understanding and a more significant, "…_oh_."

Rose looked from one to the other, frowning. "D'you two know each other?"

"In a manner of speaking," the Doctor replied shortly.

The smaller man seemed to recover his composure, even in the face of the Doctor's disapproving stare, and smiled brightly at him as he stuck his hands in his pockets. "Well, I don't remember being you, so I presume you must be from my future. If you don't mind my asking, which one of me are you?"

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest and replied in a draggingly reluctant tone, "Nine."

"Well then, we didn't miss each other by much, did we?"

Rose slammed her hands down on the log to either side with a disgruntled, "Oi!" that caused both men to startle and blink at her. "Will someone _please_ explain what is going on!"

The Doctor extricated one of his hands and made an irritated gesture at the fellow with the… hair. "Rose, this is the Doctor. The previous Doctor, that is."

She squinted at them. "What, it's like a title?"

"Nonono, that's my name," the other man corrected, then touched a hand to his chin, thoughtfully. "Or as good as one, anyway," he murmured; then snapped back to the present. "You see, I have thirteen lives—"

"Oi, she's my companion, I can explain it, thanks," said the Doctor… Rose's Doctor… shortly. He took a deep breath and fixed her with a serious gaze. "Rose, I have thirteen lives."

The other Doctor threw up his hands in silent bemusement, shaking his head and wandering a couple steps down the hill, rummaging absently through his pockets. Rose barely afforded him a distracted glance; her attention was centered squarely on the man in the leather jacket now. "Thirteen lives," she repeated, wondering if it really sounded as silly as she thought it did. "What, like a cat?"

The Doctor granted her a little sarcastic smirk. "Yeah, like a cat, only totally different. Look," he touched the bridge of his nose as if trying to figure out how to explain it without giving him a headache. "When a Time Lord dies, his body can regenerate itself. Twelve times. New body, same memories, different personality and such."

"And such," Rose aped him again, nodding as if she understood.

"Right." He seemed to take this as a success. "And this right here," he tapped his chest, "would be my eighth regeneration – the ninth… me."

Rose frowned. "So wait, you're saying there's… twelve others of you, just running round the universe right now?"

"In a manner of speaking, yeah."

She threw a dubious look at the other man calling himself Doctor; he had discovered a small white paper bag in one of his pockets and was now rummaging through that. "So he's…"

"The eighth me."

Upon hearing this, the eighth Doctor glanced up and began to pay attention again. "Yes, quite." He withdrew something red from the paper bag and held it out as an offering. "Jelly baby?"

Rose's Doctor rolled his eyes. "Was I really ever such a prat?" he softly asked no one in particular. Rose, however, took the proffered candy in hesitant fingers, and slipped it thoughtfully into her mouth.

Eight beamed an encouraging smile at her, then looked up bemusedly at his counterpart. "I have to say, I'm not particularly looking forward to being you, either. No offense," he added quickly.

Nine smiled crookedly, the corners of his eyes crinkling with that wry amusement that served to somewhat calm Rose's concerns that he was about to pick a fight. "None taken," he replied brusquely. "No doubt if Ten were here we'd both think he was an insufferable idiot."

"No doubt," Eight agreed, and held up the bag invitingly.

The ninth Doctor hesitated, the frown returning for a moment, then shrugged and dipped his hand into the bag, withdrawing a yellow candy which he promptly bit the head off of. "Wonder how many laws we're breaking right now," he mused as he chewed.

"You're keeping count, now?"

"Course not!"

Rose choked out a laugh. Both of them broke off to stare at her, chorusing, "What?"

The oddity of the whole situation was beginning to overwhelm her. "Are you really… you're _both_ the Doctor?"

"Yes," said the man who had pulled her out of the hole.

"You don't believe us?" asked hers, defensively.

"No, no," she giggled, "clears up a lot of stuff, actually. Except one thing," she sobered. "What are you both doing here?"

The Doctors exchanged looks.

"Must have been your TARDIS that hit us in the Vortex."

"My TARDIS? D'you really think I'm that poor a pilot?"

"I don't have to think; I remember!"

"Well I'm sure I didn't go jumping any time streams, so if anyone was off course it was you."

"Oh sure! Knowing me – you – you probably swerved to avoid hitting a bit of pre-primordial ooze and didn't notice you'd jumped tracks."

"Honestly!" Rose burst. "D'you know what you both sound like?"

"I seem to sound like I'm from the North," replied the eighth Doctor, his brow furrowed puzzledly.

"Oh, shut up."

"Cor, like a coupla children, you are," Rose scolded, and stood up to plant herself between them, hands on hips. "Doesn't really matter who hit who, does it?" She poked her lanky Doctor in the chest. "How do we get out of here, that's the question."

He gave her an indignant look, rubbing the spot where she'd jabbed him. "Why're you asking me?"

"Well," and here Rose was quite proud of her deductive skills, "if you've been here before, as him," she chucked a finger at Eight, who attended with half a knowing smile as he chewed on another jelly baby, "then you must remember how you got out, right?"

The Doctor shot an annoyed look at his counterpart, who merely shrugged innocently, as if to say, 'Oi, she's your companion, you can explain.' "It doesn't quite work that way," he huffed finally.

"But you said you kept your memories? Don't you remember running into yourself on some ball of foggy rock in the middle of nowhere? I think I would." Rose raised a challenging eyebrow.

The ninth Doctor gritted his teeth. "Yes, I remember meeting myself. But I didn't remember until just now, because it didn't happen until… just now."

She frowned. "Isn't that some kind of… paradox, or something?"

"I seem to be good at those," the eighth Doctor chipped in helpfully. He stepped over and draped an arm over her shoulders, offering another candy from the bag. "Help yourself. Comfort food, you know. I find it's easiest to just sit back and enjoy the ride." Nine glared daggers.

"Oh what, you're not jealous of yourself now, are you?" Rose couldn't resist a shot, grinning cheekily and leaning her head briefly against her sartorially-attired alien friend's shoulder, sap-stickied as he was. He didn't smell quite the same as her Doctor, she observed curiously, now that she had a point of reference to work from. But still… old. Very old. Smelled like time. And a bit like… sandalwood? A lock of his hair brushed against her face and she stifled a sneeze.

"Good luck with that," her Doctor snorted caustically, turning on his heel and tramping back up the hill.

Rose straightened abruptly, staring after him, then back at Eight. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The Doctor shrugged unknowingly. "Never could quite understand my other selves," he replied. "Well, come on then. We'd best stick together." He helped her the rest of the way up to the TARDIS; for which she was quite grateful, as her muscles were beginning to stiffen and ache quite demandingly from the fall. But he did not offer to hold her hand.


	3. Chapter 3

"I see we've redecorated again," was Eight's comment as they crossed the dimensional threshold into the TARDIS control room. He didn't approve; Rose could feel it in the tension of his supporting hand on her back. But being, apparently, far too polite to pass judgement on another man's TARDIS (even if the other man were himself), he said nothing further of it aloud.

This did not stop Nine from glowering in a hostile fashion as he stepped in from the inner doorway and held out his hand, expectantly. "Need to get you to the infirmary," he addressed Rose without looking at her.

Rose sighed, feeling rather like the ball in a game of Keep-Away. "Thank you," she whispered to her escort, took her Doctor's hand, and managed somehow to wait until they were well down the corridor before demanding of him, "Just what's gotten into you, anyway?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," he replied gruffly, his stride lengthening of its own accord. Rose found herself suddenly hard pressed to keep up; but he stopped abruptly when he heard her involuntary gasp of discomfort. "Oh, Rose…" his grip tightened on hers for a moment, then popped open as he turned to face her fully, putting both hands on her shoulders.

She frowned at him, not sure whether to be annoyed or concerned. The hostility had faded from his face; his gray-blue eyes were hard with some other emotion she couldn't immediately place. Pain? That didn't make any sense. And then he did something else that surprised her: he apologized.

"I'm sorry, Rose," he said, then paused as if not sure where he was supposed to go from there. "It's just… I was worried about you, all right? And then I saw _him_, and…."

"S'alright," she smiled, poking him playfully in the chest. "Guess if I ran into myself I'd feel a bit out of sorts too, yeah? But really, what you so worried about? I mean… if he's _you_, he's not bloody likely to hurt me, is he?"

The Doctor exhaled a rueful sigh, reclaimed his grasp on her hand, and continued down the hall at a more sedate pace. Rose waited patiently for him to speak, leaning companionably against his arm as they walked.

"It's not that," he said finally. "Look, this isn't the first time I've run into myself. It's just that every time I do, I always feel like I'm up for some kind of evaluation. Like I don't quite stand up to expectations. And none of us _ever_ likes what we've done with the TARDIS," he added after a moment, with a small smile.

Rose returned it; then replied thoughtfully, "Seemed to me you were the one doing most of the judging this time." His expression creased fretfully; but they had now arrived at the infirmary and she waited until she'd gotten stiffly settled in a chair, and he had crossed the room to poke through a supply cabinet, to continue. "He can't be all that bad, can he? Seems nice enough to me."

"It's not that," he repeated his earlier protestation, his shoulders slumping briefly before he turned back to tend to her bruises. "It's not that at all. In some ways," the words came slowly, as if the admission were physically painful, "he was the best of all of us." Rose winced as the sonic vibrations of the device in his hand penetrated her abused muscles. "This might hurt a bit," he warned her belatedly, glancing up with an apologetic look. "Give it an hour, though, and it'll be good as new. Well, almost. Still be a bit of bruising, can't avoid that. You mustn't say anything to him about my planet being gone."

Rose blinked at this unexpected, awkward segue. "What?"

He gazed at her in earnest. "I'm dead serious, Rose: he doesn't know yet. And he _can't_ know. That's why I stopped you before. It's dangerous to know too much about your own future." His voice was bitter, and she guessed this was a lesson he had learned the hard way.

Nevertheless, she couldn't help but ask, "But… if you warn him… couldn't he stop it? I mean, if there's a chance…"

The Doctor's eyes flickered away to the floor, unwilling or unable to let her see the tears shining there. "Things have to happen as they happen," he stated roughly. "Don't tell him. It would destroy him, Rose… it'd destroy me." He pressed his lips tight together and continued his work in silence.

Only when he was finished did he flash her his familiar smile again; and then it was as if his dark mood had never struck. "Good as new!" he declared, patted her on the shoulder (she winced), and dropped the gadget on the counter. He paused then, eyebrows knitting together as he thought of something. "Exactly how did you get so banged up again?"

Rose smiled weakly. "You were too busy one-upping yourself to ask." She passed a hand over her eyes and sighed, feeling like an utter buffoon. "I fell in a hole, all right?"

"Well what'd you do that for?"

She felt a snicker pushing at the corners of her mouth and forced it back by biting her lip. She knew he could see it hovering there anyway, but she found herself not really caring. "Good thing I did, else you might not've found me, and then you wouldn't be able to help yourself get us out of this mess, yeah?"

"I almost didn't hear you anyway," he replied thoughtfully, his eyes going distant for a moment; and she realized—

"All right now, that's just bloody weird."

His gaze snapped back into focus. "What?"

"You were… _remembering_ that just now, weren't you?"

He grinned, broadly. "Yup." Rose felt woozy. The Doctor chuckled and helped her out of her chair, waiting patiently as she clutched his jacket for balance, until the blood had stopped rushing to her head. "Go on, have a hot bath, you'll feel better," he suggested. "I've got to have a chat with myself, sort some things out."

"Don't you go… wandering off," Rose tried to sound authoritative, but it was difficult as a yawn forced its way up her throat.

"Won't go anywhere without you, promise." He gave her a gentle shove toward the door. "Off with you, now."

The TARDIS obligingly rearranged her corridors so Rose didn't have to walk far to get to the large bathroom; and when she did, she found a tub of hot water already waiting. "Thanks," she addressed the empty air, peeled off her dirty, sticky, sappy clothes and sank without further preamble into the soothing, steaming water.

She must have dozed off, because when she was next blinked to awareness the water was tepid and her fingers had completely pruned. She also felt a great deal better, true to the Doctor's word. She pulled herself out of the tub and wrapped herself up in the large, fluffy towel hanging on the wall, murmuring another thank-you to the time ship for the consideration. "Know you're busy enough healing yourself, old girl," she smiled fondly, then slapped a hand to her forehead. "God, I'm starting to sound like him… and now I'm talking to myself," she realized a moment later. "Fantastic." She giggled.

A short, towel-wrapped dash down the hallway to her room, and a fresh change of clothes later, Rose returned to the control room, tucking her phone into her pocket and raking fingers through her damp hair. She found the Doctor – Doctors – chatting casually amid a minefield of wiring and dismantled control panels.

"There she is," observed Eight with a smile, nodding a greeting her way while Nine grumbled over a tricky wire splice. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah, thanks," she murmured, stepping up to the railing and peering mystified at the mess they'd made.

"Try it now," said Nine briskly, looking up from a circuit board on his lap. Rose put a hand quickly to her mouth to stifle a snicker at a black smudge of solder on the side of his prominent nose.

Eight saw it too, and flashed her a mischievous grin, touching one finger to his lips in a shushing gesture as he turned to flip a couple switches on the main control panel. "Nothing," he reported, tilting his head up to peer at the monitor bank. "No, wait…" he lifted his right hand, hovered it carefully over the console for a moment, choosing the precise spot and moment, and then gave the central pillar an authoritative thump with the side of his fist.

The main monitor flickered on.

"There we are," he announced brightly.

"Fantastic," enthused Rose's Doctor, clambering to his feet and stepping carefully over a tangle of wires to read the data on display. Almost immediately he frowned. "That's not right."

"Odd," agreed his counterpart.

"What?" said Rose.

"Well, we—" the eighth Doctor paused abruptly, glancing at the ninth in case he should prefer to do the explaining again; but upon receiving a distracted wave as his other self dove back into the circuitry, continued. "We've got the sensors back on-line," he explained, sidestepping around an open access hatch in the floor to join Rose at the railing. "But we don't seem to be anywhere."

Rose gave him a dubious smirk. "How's that possible? Obviously we're here, we're _somewhere._"

"Not according to the TARDIS," he replied, perfectly serious but at the same time, somehow, unconcerned. He chewed on his lip, thoughtfully. "Your TARDIS, anyway."

"What d'you mean, you think yours might have a better idea?"

"Or a different idea, at any rate," he agreed.

They both turned their heads at a disgruntled oath from the central pillar; then the ninth Doctor stepped over the access hatch, twisting his arm to settle a dislodged fold of his jacket, and requested forthrightly: "Rose, let me see your phone."

Puzzled, but having learned long ago that this was a perfectly normal state of mind when dealing with this particular nine-hundred-year-old time-traveling alien, Rose drew her phone from her pocket and handed it over. He fiddled with it for a few moments, then grunted.

"Like I thought."

"What's that?" the other two asked in unison.

The Doctor turned the phone around so they could see the display. "No signal," he announced, smiling grimly. "We're not only nowhere, we're no_when_."

"Surely you couldn't get a signal from that, anyway?" puzzled the other Doctor.

"He modified it," Rose explained briskly, quite used to this question.

"Ah." Eight's eyebrows climbed upward appreciatively, and he grinned. "Haven't lost my touch, then."

"Came in first in jiggery-pokery," Rose nodded, "or so I hear."

"Sounds like me." Eight rubbed the side of his nose in an outwardly absent manner, causing Rose to have to fight off another fit of giggling. Nine narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but before he could demand an explanation the shorter Doctor placed his errant hand lightly in his coat pocket and spoke again. "If I may make a suggestion then, I'd like to feed this data to my TARDIS and see what she can do with it. Between the two of them, the old girls might just figure it out."

"Sounds like a plan," Nine nodded briskly.

"Can I go too?" Rose didn't realize she'd spoken until her own blurted words echoed in her ears. She cleared her throat, not sure why she suddenly felt embarrassed. "I mean… I'd like to see it, that's all. Another TARDIS."

"It's the same TARDIS, Rose," her Doctor informed her in a long-suffering tone.

"Right, like you two're the same Doctor?" she grinned. "Want to compare notes, that's all. I'll come _back_," she reached across and prodded his leather-clad elbow, teasing. He frowned and folded his arms defensively. Such a _child_, she thought with fond exasperation, then looked to the other Doctor for a second opinion. "So is that all right, then?"

"I don't see why not. I'm parked about two hills over; are you up for a bit of a hike?"

"Long as we avoid any gaping holes."

"Well here, don't forget your phone this time," the ninth Doctor insisted, shoving the device back at her.

Eight glanced at it curiously. "I thought you said it didn't work here?"

Nine looked smug. "Got a direct line to the TARDIS. She can call here from anywhere in the universe, doesn't need a signal."

"Ah, well that's handy."

"Thanks," said Rose, tucking the mobile back into her pocket. "We'll just pop on over there, then, and call back here, soon as we've got something useful.

"Don't get lost," the Doctor admonished. "And remember what we talked about in the infirmary."

Rose pressed her lips together momentarily, casting a suddenly apprehensive glance at the eighth Doctor, who blinked back at her with frank innocence. "No problem," she decided boldly, and then flashed her Doctor a cheeky grin. "We'll be back before ten."

"Oi! Off with you," he waved, gruffly, turning back to his vivisected TARDIS console.

Eight looked slightly confused for a moment at this exchange, then shrugged and led the way outside. He paused to get his bearings in the oppressive fog, smiled, announced, "This way," with jaunty confidence, and set off down the hill.

Rose kept close on his heels, fascinated for the moment just by his gait. Her Doctor had a tendency to bolt and pounce upon things. This one… strolled. But he didn't lose any time in doing so. She almost stumbled over him when he stopped suddenly and stooped to pluck something off the ground.

"Now that's interesting," he mused, flashing something shiny between his fingers. "How did you get here?"

"What is it?" Rose asked, curiously, and privately a bit smug that the Doctor got distracted by shiny things too. He flipped the object neatly her way. She caught it awkwardly in both hands, not having expected the pitch.

It was a penny. Rose stared at it in bafflement. Abraham Lincoln's stern visage winked at her from the shiny copper.

"Not yours, is it?" asked the Doctor.

She shook her head. "Not mine… I don't carry American cash about with me. And besides, it's dated twenty-second century."

"Hm," said the Doctor, and clattered off down the hill. "Seems we're not the only misplaced things that ended up here. Suppose there's a great mountain of matchless socks around here somewhere, too." She hurried to keep up with him. "You're from… when?" he asked. "Late twentieth, early twenty-first century Earth, I'm guessing? Mind that crack."

Rose sidestepped quickly to avoid the crack in the ground that had been about to leap up and twist her ankle something fierce. "Yeah. Two thousand five…" she frowned. "No. Two thousand six, now."

The Doctor chuckled. "Gets a bit hard to keep track of, after a while."

"Oh, no, I'm a year off because the Doc… I mean… you? Landed us twelve months off target, instead of twelve hours." Another frown, "Or is that will land? Bloody verb tenses."

"Willan on-land, I think," quipped the Doctor cheerfully, "but that's a bit more grammar than I like to deal with before tea. Have I taken you to see Gallifrey yet?"


	4. Chapter 4

_"Willan on-land, I think," quipped the Doctor cheerfully, "but that's a bit more grammar than I like to deal with before tea. Have I taken you to see Gallifrey yet?"_

Rose's feet stopped moving of their own accord. Unfortunately, the rest of her body kept on going, and it was only by a quick awkward jumping step that she kept from falling. The Doctor glanced back at her in concern. "Tripped," she explained lamely. "And, um… no, you haven't. Been too busy running round saving the universe, I guess."

He favored her with a kind, quietly sad smile. "You're lying," he observed; then held up one hand to forestall her protestations. "Nonono, that's all right…" he turned to put his eyes back on the path, stepping carefully through a field of jagged stones. "I'm sure I had a good reason for it."

"Sorry," she said anyway, careful to step where he did just in case any more holes should open up beneath her feet. She knew she should have let it drop there, but now that the subject had been broached, it hung before her like a tantalizing… shiny thing. "That's where you're from, isn't it? Gallifrey?" she ventured finally. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but this might be the only chance she'd ever have to find out anything about the place. Her Doctor always turned so sullen whenever the topic came up.

The Doctor paused a moment to glance up at the overcast sky. "I'd point it out to you, if the clouds weren't in the way. And if I had any idea where we were," he added with a grin, raking a hand through his hair.

"What's it like?" Rose asked.

He tossed her a wondering glance, then evidently decided he didn't want to know why his other self wouldn't have told her anything. "Bit like Earth, actually," he said airily, resuming his stride. "Blue skies, green grass…" he smirked slightly. "Lot of stuffy boring bureaucrats…"

"Take it you're a bit of a black sheep, then?" Rose grinned.

"Oh yes. I was President once," he segued, looked thoughtful a moment and counted on his fingers, then amended, "or was it twice? Either way, I got out of it in the end. But the trees," he shook a finger imperiously, jumping topics like a flea, "they're what get the oohs and ahhs."

"And why's that?" she asked dutifully.

He smiled happily. "They're silver. Stand on a hilltop at midday, and it's one great shimmering sea of brilliant foliage, stretching far as the eye can see!" He flung his arms out and did a little skip, twisting and walking backwards for a few strides so he could see her reaction. Rose laughed. "And if you're lucky enough to land there in springtime, when the magentas are coming into bloom…" he sighed, grinned and advised, "You really should get me to take you sometime. In the springtime. I know I tend to wander, but still, home is home, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Rose replied, feeling some of the joy he had momentarily transferred to her ebb away into the thick mist. She'd never see Gallifrey. _He'd_ never see his home again. But she wasn't supposed to talk about that. She tried to think of a way to change the subject delicately, but the Doctor seemed to sense her sudden mood shift and, with a sympathetic smile – not that he could know what he was being sympathetic about – turned to face forward again.

"Ah, here we are," he announced a minute later, as they topped a riser in the ground. Up ahead through the fog loomed the uncannily familiar shape of a blue police box.

"Haven't changed it much on the outside then, have you?" she observed.

He gave her a look of shock at the notion that he'd ever want to change the exterior. "I rather like it this way, don't you?" She was trying to muster a polite excuse out of that one when she caught the look in his eye and realized he was teasing. She punched him lightly in the arm, earning a wounded, "Ow," and then he fit his key to the lock and let them inside.

Rose hesitated on the threshold. "This won't cause a paradox or anything, if I come inside, will it?"

"What's that?" The Doctor spun, coattails flapping, to look at her, having already bounded up to the central console and begun flipping switches. "Oh. No… no I don't think so," he said in a rush.

"But then I'm very rarely sure of anything that happens in cases like these," he added, after Rose had already set one foot inside. She froze mid-stride, glaring. He gave her an almost-apologetic smile. "Sorry." He made a vague pointing gesture with two fingers that somehow encompassed the expanse of the room. "Universe doesn't seem to have imploded, though." He turned back to the TARDIS controls, mumbling busily to himself.

Rose craned her head about and simply stared. This was not the control room to which she was accustomed. It was big, of course, her TARDIS; but this was… _big._ Really, really big. "Gothic," she observed, to a polite grunt of absent acknowledgement from the center pillar. She tapped a toe against the floor – stone, not the metal grating she was used to – and musingly padded over an ornate rug to lay a hand on one of the metal support columns. The columns were in the wrong place, of course, but as the room was so much larger she supposed they'd have to be spread out a bit differently. Bits of statuary and other esoterica were on scattered display about the room, which was illuminated primarily by what seemed to be gaslight. She waved a hand near one of the lamps, then touched it, cautiously. Cool to the touch. And across the room, opposite the door—"Cor, you got a library in here?" she asked wonderingly as she swished past the Doctor to investigate.

He stopped his fiddling for a moment to turn and watch her, leaning against the edge of the console. "Not really," he demurred, as she walked along the bookcase, dragging a finger across the spines of the tomes on display. "Just some of my personal collection. The library's—"

"Third left, second right, down the stairs, across the walkway, seventh right?" Rose glanced back with a grin.

"No," he had to think a moment, "that's the arboretum." He rubbed a hand over his lips, frowning slightly. "At least I think it is…."

Rose laughed. "She likes to switch rooms around on me, too. Ooh, this is signed!" She had picked up one of the leather-bound books and was carefully paging through it.

The Doctor abandoned the console and moved over to see what it was. "Ah, that's one of my favorites," he approved. "Signed first edition, actually."

She snapped the cover shut to read the title aloud. "_The Time Machine_, by H.G. Wells." She gave him an impish grin. "What, when you've got the real thing right here?"

"No substituting for the classics," he quipped, and then, still smiling: "We have a problem."

Rose set the book down. "What?" She could see a bit of her Doctor in that almost-manic grin, and she knew that never meant anything good.

"Well, it seems the main time engines are offline."

"Can't you fix it?"

"It's not broken."

"Then why—"

"No power," the Doctor mercifully cut to the chase. "It takes a tremendous amount of power to travel through space and time, you know."

"Yeah, I know. So, what, did you forget to gas up before you left?"

He smiled wryly. "It doesn't quite work like that. You see," he took two long steps back to the control console and began flipping switches again, "the TARDIS is actually powered by a stable black hole…" he trailed off for a moment, then let out a satisfied, "Aha," of triumph as the ceiling suddenly fuzzed out and was replaced by a holographic star map. He brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes and scanned upward, reaching for Rose's elbow with one hand and pointing with the other to direct her gaze. "You see: there."

Rose was too busy gawping at the fact that the ceiling had suddenly split open to the heavens. "Thought you said there was no power?" she demanded.

He glanced at her. "Just because you haven't got the energy to run a marathon doesn't mean your heart stops beating, does it? Essential functions still work."

She waved her hand at the staggering overhead display in disbelief. "And this… this is an essential function?"

"To a TARDIS? Being able to see where you are, plot a safe course through space and time? Essential as breathing," he concluded, turning his eyes upward again. The hand that had been pointing reached out blindly to turn a knob by his side, and the view zoomed in on one of several indistinguishable star systems amid the array of galaxies. "There," he proclaimed, pointing again, "You see?"

"No," said Rose, truthfully.

"Precisely," he agreed brightly. "It's a black hole. Nothing to see. But it's there, all right. The Eye of Harmony, anchored just outside of space-time in delicate balance, with…" his expression went slack for a moment as he concentrated, twisting another dial and swinging the view around again. "There," he smiled broadly at the bright nebulous object now in focus, and glanced at Rose for her approval. "Gallifrey."

Rose stared. Just knowing what it was she was looking at made it quite possibly the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. A shimmering beacon of life in the cold blackness of space. And the thought that it no longer existed… would no longer exist… she tore her eyes away and tried to smile for the Doctor. He seemed so happy, so eager… God. Coming here was a mistake.

He seemed a mite disappointed at her lackluster response. "Well, I guess it doesn't look like much from this distance."

"No, s'great. Really," Rose insisted, awkwardly patting the sticky-soft velvet over his arm. Then she changed the subject. "So what's this Eye of… what?"

"Harmony," he replied automatically, turning back to the control panel. "Every TARDIS maintains a link out to it… provides near-infinite energy… but," his brow furrowed, "the link appears to be down. That shouldn't happen."

"You don't have a backup generator or anything like that?"

The Doctor smirked sheepishly. "Never needed one before." He thumbed another switch and glanced up at the large display as an overlay of characters appeared. Rose didn't recognize the alphabet. "Well that's something," he muttered, almost to himself, then in a louder voice, explained, "She's still in contact with the Space-Time Matrix. We may be outside of ten dimensions, but we can't hide from the eleventh!"

Rose tried to pretend that that had made any sense. "So what does that mean to us?"

He grinned. "Means we can navigate out of here. Even though 'here' isn't technically anywhere. We can lock onto the signal from the Matrix and use it as a beacon. I wonder why your TARDIS was blind," he trailed off, musing.

Rose made a noise approximating intelligent curiosity on that point, feeling some sort of response was expected, and pulled out her phone. "Think it's about time I called the Doctor, then."

"Hm? …Oh! My other self; yes, of course."

Time Lords, Rose decided as she plopped into an overstuffed armchair and brought up the dialing menu on her phone, were an odd lot. Then she had to amend the thought, as technically, she supposed, she'd still only met one of them. Would only meet one of them. She shook her head. Well, the Doctor was an odd lot, then. She pressed the 'call TARDIS' button and waited, four whole rings before he answered.

"What kept you?" she demanded in a playfully stern tone, before he could utter a word.

"_Neck-deep in wires and circuits trying to figure a way out of this mess, thanks_," he retorted smartly. "_Any luck over there?_"

"Yeah, the Doc… the… fellow with the fancy clothes, you know who I mean, he says he can plot a way out of here, by using some sort of Matrix thing?"

"_The Space-Time Matrix?_" the Doctor's voice turned oddly thoughtful.

"Yeah, that was it. But we've got no main power. Something about a connection to black hole gone missing, or something."

"_The Eye of Harmony._"

"Right, glad _you_ know what you're talking about." There was a long pause, and Rose wondered if she'd lost the connection. "Doctor?"

"_I'm here. Was just thinking._" Another pause, but this time she could hear his meditative exhalation, and waited patiently. "_You got a speaker option on that handset?_"

"Yeah, why, you want to talk to both of us?"

"_No, I just asked for academic purposes. Bloody humans._"

Rose grinned and held the phone away from her ear while she poked the speaker button. "He wants to talk to you," she called the other Doctor over, thumbing up the volume. "Hello Doctor, can you still hear me?"

"_Loud and clear. Now listen. I've got an idea the two TARDISes can get us out of this mess._"

"I'm all ears," averred the eighth Doctor, leaning over the back of Rose's chair.

"_Rose tells me you've got navigation coordinates to get us out of here?_"

"Yes," the Doctor raised his voice slightly so as to be heard clearly over the mobile. "My TARDIS seems to've maintained a connection to the Matrix that yours hasn't. But I can pass the coordinates over to yours easily enough."

"_Fantastic. But you've got no power._"

"That's right."

"_Well, we do._"

"Now what a coincidence that is," Eight mused whimsically. "I lose my link to the Eye, but stay in contact with the Matrix, while you—"

"_No, my connection to the Eye is down too._" To Rose's ears, trained to the Doctor's familiar voice, he sounded a bit strained. "_But I've got an alternate power supply_."

"We must have designed it after we get off this rock, as a safeguard against further such incidents," Eight suggested. Rose tried not to process that sentence, for fear that her brain might explode.

"_Could be,_" Nine agreed. "_Listen, we'll have to get the TARDISes in closer proximity in order for mine to jump-start yours. If you can run a beacon from there, I can pop over._"

"Easily done," said Eight.

"_Do it, then. I've got about another hour here before she'll be flight-worthy, though. Just sit tight. Rose: mind you don't drop and break him by accident._"

"I'll try," she replied with a grin. "See you in an hour, Doctor."


	5. Chapter 5

It didn't take long to set up the beacon. "Now," the Doctor observed, stepping back from the console, "all we need to worry about is attracting the attention of anything large and angry with that. But given what we've seen of this place, I think that's very unlikely."

"You're so reassuring. You know that, right?"

The Doctor smiled wryly. "I do try." He brushed idly at one of the sap stains on his coat front, and then looked up sharply, bright-eyed. "Can I show you something?"

Rose sniggered. "You know, if we were on Earth and I didn't know you, you'd be getting such a slap right now."

His expression filled with dismay. "I didn't mean that!"

Rose laughed, and then, on a surprising whim, stepped up and hugged him. He seemed to find this not at all odd and wrapped his arms briefly round her in return, patting her back; then pulled away with a curious expression, eyes dancing, leaving one arm halfway round her waist.

"What was that for?"

Rose laughed again. She couldn't help it. "Don't know," she admitted. "Seemed the thing to do at the time."

"Thank you," he said.

"You really are the Doctor, aren't you?"

"Yes."

They stood, eyes locked, for several moments; then he broke out another boyish grin. "So can I show you this?" He let go her waist and bounced across the room, pausing by the inner doorway to look back expectantly.

"What's 'this?'" Rose asked, with mock suspicion, though at that moment she felt she could follow him into a live volcano and think of nothing but how exciting it would be to see up close. His enthusiasm was infectious.

"I'll show you!" he proclaimed. "Come on, then."

It was a foregone conclusion that she would have to explore this mystery with him now, and so she relented and followed after him as he headed briskly down the corridor. Far be it from her to tempt fate.

"I seem to have upset you earlier," he spoke quietly as they walked. "And no, don't apologize," he insisted before she'd barely opened her mouth. "Something must have happened, and I don't want to know what it is. But I do want to make it up to you." He turned down a side corridor, then another, and finally came to a halt before a large door at the end of a short stone tunnel. He paused to flash her a gleeful look. "This is where I come when I want cheering up."

He pushed through the door and into the room beyond. Rose just stood in the doorway for several long moments, blinking in the sudden brightness, her jaw gone completely slack.

"Well come on then!" the Doctor cried back at her from halfway up a grassy hillside. "Mind the butterflies."

Rose shook herself to her senses and stepped inside – or was it outside? – hesitantly. The grass felt springy beneath her feet; the sun warm overhead; and god this was impossible. "How…?" she started to ask, and forgot the question as the ground rose up beneath her feet and exploded in a miniature tornado of swirling color and whispering wings. "Oh, wow…" was all she managed to utter, as a pair of vivid yellow butterflies whisked by her nose and disappeared into the indistinguishable sworl overhead. Trying to step carefully, but stumbling as her eyes refused to tear themselves from the aerial display to look at the ground, she shuffled up the hill to the Doctor, who waited with a huge grin plastered across his face, arms outflung, laughing delightedly as hundreds of the brightly colored insects swarmed around him.

"Slowly," he cautioned, as she reached up wonderingly to touch one of the big fuzzy grey and orange moths clinging to his coat. Its hair was so fine she could barely feel it under her finger. Another purplish black one landed on the back of her hand and she brought it wonderingly to her face, scarcely daring to breathe.

"Are they all… real?" she asked.

"Oh yes," said the Doctor, smiling at her around a chain of tiny orange butterflies dangling from a lock of his hair. "A few thousand species here, from all over the universe. Just the ones that will live peacefully together, of course. Did you know, Earth alone has over a hundred and sixty-five thousand species of Lepidoptera?"

"Lepi-what?" Rose blinked as the purple moth took wing and merged into the endless swirling dance.

"Lepidoptera. Butterflies," he repeated, moving one hand with slow care to gently brush a few of the moths from his coat. They fluttered precariously and then re-settled, crawling over one another. "Practical too," he grinned, wiping his thumb over the dark green velvet, now utterly devoid of sap.

"Cheaper than the dry-cleaners'," Rose quipped. She stroked another of the grey ones and was delighted when it clambered from the Doctor's forearm to her hand. "Y'know, most people say butterfly collection, they mean dead ones stuck under glass."

The Doctor wrinkled his nose. "I know. I think I prefer my way though, don't you?"

Rose laughed. "Not many people could keep up a hobby like this. How'd you get sunlight in here?"

"Oh, it's artificial, of course. Can't tell though, can you? Marvelous girl, this old TARDIS." The Doctor smiled fondly and eased himself down to sit in the grass, careful not to squash any of the insects.

Rose sat down beside him, feeling as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She leaned back on her elbows on the hillside, watching for some moments a shiny green butterfly that alighted on her knee, then turning her gaze upward at the dancing swarm. "Is that a cloud?" she wondered, squinting at the large shimmering object above them.

The Doctor's eyes sparkled. "Look closer," he urged.

Rose stared more intently – then gasped as the 'cloud' shifted and blinked at her. "That's a butterfly!"

"Yes. A flutterwing; they never land."

"That's amazing!"

The Doctor smiled. "I'm glad you like it." Rose tore her eyes off the gigantic butterfly, with difficulty, to look sideways at her companion instead. His face was turned upward, his eyes darting more swiftly than human, following the intricate flight patterns of the swarm. She realized suddenly that his hair no longer seemed too long; his hands too fine; his voice too gentle; even his outfit no longer seemed so outlandish. It fit him. The whole package.

_In some ways,_ she heard the Doctor's harder Lancashire accent in her head, _he was the best of all of us._

But he was wrong. She realized she no longer thought of the man sitting beside her as the "other" Doctor. Eighth, ninth, tenth, it didn't matter. He was simply the Doctor. _Her_ Doctor. And even on this ball of nothing rock in the middle of nowhere, he'd found a way to show her a corner of the universe she'd never seen. She grinned softly to herself.

Then blinked, as she realized his sharp eyes had shifted from the butterflies to her face; he was watching her with a gently bemused expression.

Rose kissed him.

It was perfectly chaste: just a peck on the cheek; she didn't even realize she'd leant over and done it until after she'd drawn back again. He made no indication of either displeasure or reciprocation; except that his smile perhaps widened very slightly as he looked at her. Asking nothing.

"Thanks," she said, simply.

"What are friends for," he replied happily, then pushed himself elegantly to his feet and offered her a hand up. "Now let's get home."

In point of fact it took rather longer than an hour for the ninth Doctor to get the TARDIS flight circuits online; it was closer to two. Rose didn't mind. She sat outside waiting with the eighth Doctor, their backs to the solid comfort of the big blue box, chatting amicably and splitting a packet of biscuits she'd found in the kitchen. (It didn't seem, she had observed, that the Doctor made much use of said kitchen in any of his incarnations.)

When the second TARDIS finally materialized a few yards away with its reassuringly familiar wheezing and groaning sound, she noted that the damage to the side panels already looked better. Just a bit dinged up rather than completely caved in. The door swung open and the Doctor tramped out. The smudge of solder was gone from his nose, but the rest of his face looked more than grimy enough now to make up for it. He scuffed up a puff of dust as he came to a sharp halt, glaring sternly at the two of them.

"Working hard, I see," he observed.

Rose giggled and scrambled to her feet, offering him the last of the biscuits. "Hardly our fault if we finished our part of it on time. Waiting on a Time Lord, fancy that."

"Ha ha," he replied dryly; but he took the biscuit. Munching on it, he gave his chin a jerk toward the open door behind him. "Make yourself useful, then; there's a pile of cable in there. Run it on out and hook us up."

"What, by myself?"

"Sure," he grinned, leaning one shoulder against his TARDIS, licking a few crumbs off his fingers and then folding his arms in a cocksure manner. "You're such the expert, getting your work done on time and all."

She stuck out her tongue and skipped past him, singing out, "Fine, then!" The cable she found neatly coiled on the floor in the control room looked rather lightweight for such a task as jump-starting a TARDIS, but she shrugged and began paying it out anyway, walking backwards through the doorway. Police boxes didn't look like they should be able to travel through space and time either; so who was she to judge some wires on looks?

Despite his challenge, the ninth Doctor took part of the coil off her hands and helped her run it to the other TARDIS, though she noticed him suppress a faint shudder as he crossed the threshold into the great gothic control room. "This old place," he murmured to himself, glancing about and then briskly crossing the stone to the hardwood floor that surrounded the central pillar. He sat down under the console and began ripping out wires like he knew what he was doing.

The eighth Doctor, meanwhile, crossed to the other side of the hexagonal console and tapped in a few commands. The TARDIS hummed to itself, and a few moments later a hatch slid open in the panel, discharging a small nondescript cube. The Doctor picked this up carefully and brought it over to Rose.

"These are the coordinates we'll need to get out of here."

Rose frowned, turning it over curiously in her hands. "What's this, like a… Gallifreyan floppy disk?"

He smiled. "Bit more complex than that."

"I bet."

"Rose," called the ninth Doctor from under the console, "Run back to the control room and push that big red button on the main control panel. I labeled it, just in case it being big and red wasn't incentive enough."

"Oi, watch it, you," Rose shot back fondly, throwing his big cheeky grin right back at him. She hurried from one big blue box to the other, found the button – and he _had_ labeled it, the big git: 'Push Me Rose' – pressed it with authority, and then, leaving the datacube on the console, jogged back.

She entered to the familiar sound of a humming time engine, and the sight of the Doctors slapping each other on the back in congratulatory fashion. She ducked under their arms and wormed between them, hanging one arm on each of their shoulders: one clad in leather, one velvet. "Is that it, then?" she asked cheerily. Her favorite alien in the universe, and here she was, sandwiched between both of him. Didn't get much better than that, she thought.

Eight scanned the monitor readouts eagerly, and nodded. "Everything's online now. All we need to do is use those coordinates I gave you and we'll both be on our way back to our own time streams."

Rose felt almost disappointed that it had been resolved so quickly. "Well," she said, disentangling herself from the both of them and smiling a bit wistfully at Eight, "Guess this is good-bye, then?"

"Not really," he smiled back. "You're leaving with me, after all."

She felt the ninth Doctor's comforting grip on her shoulder and reached up briefly to squeeze his calloused hand in return. "Yeah," she glanced up at him with a grin, "guess so."

The Doctors shook hands.

"Nice to meet me."

"Try not to get into too much trouble."

"Well you'd know, I guess."

Rose and the Doctor gathered up their wires and stepped outside, the door swinging shut behind them on a final glimpse of flickering lamplight. A few moments later, the distinctive sound of the time engines shuddered through the air, and the TARDIS faded from sight.

"Well, that was… interesting," Rose murmured, leaning against the Doctor with a small sigh.

"Just interesting?" he grinned down at her.

She poked him in the ribs. "Just learned some things about you, yeah? How interesting could it possibly be?"

He laughed, draped his arm over her shoulders, and led the way back into the TARDIS, and home.


	6. Epilogue

They had been drifting in the Time Vortex for the better part of a day, giving the TARDIS a chance to complete repairs to herself. Rose had managed to catch up on some of her lost sleep, and had then spent some time wandering the seemingly endless corridors, but the torch lit hallways and stone tunnels were nowhere to be found. Eventually she found herself in the library, and struck by a notion of whimsy, found a copy of _The Time Machine_, by H.G. Wells, and curled up with it by the hearth.

She had gotten no more than a few chapters in, when she heard the door open, and soft footsteps crossed the thickly carpeted floor. She glanced up to see the Doctor, standing awkwardly with his hands folded behind him, chewing on his lip in a most uncharacteristically self-conscious manner.

"What's up?" she asked, shoving her hair behind an ear.

"I remembered something," he said, a bit hoarsely; then smiled and brought his hands out from behind his back, holding out a small flat something wrapped loosely in silvery fabric. "Found it at the bottom of my closet. Must have survived the… well, the TARDIS kept track of it, well enough."

Rose set the book aside and got up curiously, her fingers brushing his as she took the object delicately from his grasp. "What is it?"

He grinned. "Open it and see."

She cast him a suspicious look, but he simply rocked back on his heels and continued to grin expectantly. She shrugged and sat down to unwrap the parcel on her lap. Inside she found a plain flat box, and a handwritten letter. With another puzzled glance at the Doctor, she unfolded the creamy parchment and read.

_Dear Rose,_

_I understand now why I can never show you Gallifrey. I can't thank you enough for sparing me the pain. I know it must have been difficult for you. Events have been in motion for far too long for even the Time Lords – even one rather foolish Time Lord with a penchant for bending the Laws of Time – to stand in their way now. But thanks to you, he can perhaps spare a small piece of history. If this letter reaches you, then you'll understand._

_I am comforted to know that whatever else the future may hold, it will hold you._

_All my love,  
__The Doctor_

Rose sniffled and realized that her cheeks were wet. She looked up helplessly at the Doctor, who knelt before her and gently wiped the tears away. "Look in the box," he said quietly.

She removed the lid. Inside was a plain black frame, which held an odd, shimmering picture within. She lifted it out of the box and held it up curiously. The image shifted with her perspective, and with a surprised 'oh!' she realized it was holographic. And though she'd never seen it first-hand, it seemed somehow familiar.

The Doctor slid round to her side to see it as well. "The view from the western face of Mount Lung, on Gallifrey," he explained softly as she stared into the shimmering waves of silver that stretched tantalizingly into the distance. "All the way to the Cadonflood, there," he pointed out a thin hint of flowing water beyond the forest, and sighed. "I used to climb those trees in the summertime. Spent my childhood there, as it were." He chuckled ruefully. "Couldn't get away from the place fast enough, back then."

Rose turned her eyes with difficulty from the holographic picture to his face, a breath trembling in her throat; but she couldn't make any sound come out. Instead she set the frame down reverently and threw her arms around him. He hugged her back fiercely. She burrowed her head against his chest, the alien yet comforting rhythm of his double heartbeat thudding a soothing lullaby in her ear. After what felt like an eternity, she was able to loosen her fingers from his jacket and sit back with a loud sniff.

"I don't know what to say," she said.

He smiled. "Don't have to say anything. You're here, that's all that matters." He unfolded his lanky form and stood up, pausing to offer his hand to her. "Come with me? I've got an idea where we're going next."

She blinked up at him, wiping a single remaining tear from her eye and just drinking him in. Big stupid ears, big stupid grin; but he was so much more than that.

"Where?" she asked.

His eyes twinkled. "Someplace with a lot of butterflies."

Rose Tyler leapt out of her seat and grabbed hold of her Doctor's hand. It fit perfectly.


End file.
